This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, an urban private, non-profit university. Over its five-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to fifteen unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering. Scholars will be selected in two cohorts of first year mechanical engineering students. The Scholars will be retained and assisted through degree completion and placement into the workforce or graduate school. In addition to scholarships, the program will provide Scholars with a robust suite of support structures that include social activities, peer tutoring, shadowing experiences, student-faculty interaction, career guidance, and preparation for research, graduate school and/or the engineering workforce. Because of institution’s geographical context and student population, the project is likely to broaden participation in engineering. Milwaukee has the third-highest level of poverty among large cities in the United States and the population includes about 27% African Americans and 16% Hispanic Americans. In addition, because the project has strong linkages with the Milwaukee Public Schools and the K-12 community, the project can contribute to strengthening the engineering talent pipeline. Also notable is the strong industry component that will facilitate Scholar internships and career mentoring to help nurture engineering identity and increasing the potential for the Scholars to enter engineering careers.
The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. With regard to intellectual merit, the project will generate new knowledge by investigating the effectiveness of the support structures employed to enhance student persistence to graduation. The value of this knowledge is elevated by the relatively unique institutional setting, which features a standalone, fully accredited, non-profit university that is primarily an engineering school. The project has the potential to increase understanding about the impact of curricula and co-curricular interventions on cognitive and non-cognitive student characteristics, personal development, retention, and graduation. For the cohorts of financially eligible, academically talented mechanical engineering students, three research questions are posited: (1) Does the project produce significant differences in retention of the Scholars? (2) Which interventions are more effective in retention and academic success of Scholars? (3) Does the project effectively provide a pathway to a successful, satisfying career for the Scholars? Answers are to be sought through collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data from surveys, in-person interviews, and focus groups. The project management team has the needed expertise and includes a social science researcher who will lead the educational research activities. There is a well-qualified external evaluator charged with evaluation of the process of project execution and the monitoring of the extent of adherence to the project management plan. The dissemination plan for widescale distribution of findings is robust and comprehensive, including on-campus presentations, posters, professional engineering conferences, social networks, industry, and K-12 outreach. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
